Morris

“I’m a little worried about Morris” Sandra Hargreaves told her friend Mavis as they sat at the dining table. “He’s got this bee in his bonnet about Richard the third being innocent of the murder of the princes in the tower and I’m not sure how the committee at the Legion are going to take it when it gets out.” “I am sat here at this table, woman. I am not invisible” said Morris as he reached for the brown sauce and vinegar for his chips. “All I’m saying is you need to examine the man’s character based on contemporary accounts and disassociate your point of view from the Tudor propaganda machine before you jump to conclusions.”

“Oh, I don’t know Morris” said Mavis, clutching the Gratton catalogue she’d popped round to borrow. “Why did he move so swiftly from being pronounced Lord Protector to suddenly crowning himself King with never a bye your leave about those two little mites. It’s all a poor do if you ask me”. Sandra nodded in agreement. “You’ve not an argument against that, have you. What am I going to tell Mrs Davenport in the butchers if this carry on carries on!”

Morris swallowed a piece of lamb chop carefully. He dipped a piece of bread in his fried egg and pointed it at Mavis. A gloop of yoke escaped off the end and splattered on the table cloth. Sandra tutted. “It had been proved” said Morris very carefully, as if he wasn’t talking to Mavis Glossop but to the lads in the snug at the Moors Head, “beyond reasonable doubt, that the marriage between Edward the fourth and Elizabeth Woodville was illegal. There were no banns read. Read my lips, no banns. Anywhere. And he’d already married Eleanor Talbot, the swine. Edward was just so desperate to get under Elizabeth’s wimple for a sight of her gilt hair that he agreed to the service because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Therefore, the Princes weren’t Princes – they were illegitimate. And there’s plenty of evidence that says Edward was illegitimate himself. His father was away campaigning in France when, by all accounts, the child was concieved and born. If that had got out, the country would have decended into anarchy. Remember what it was like under Henry the Sixth? The minority of the king with over mighty subjects jostling for power? Think on. Richard was thinking of England, not himself”.

“What is gilt hair?” asked Sandra? “You’re putting me of my stride here woman” said Morris who was now mopping up his plate and pouring a fresh cuppa. “But I think we can all agree it was blond”. They all nodded. “But illegitimacy is no bar to the throne” said Mr Pomfret, the man from the Pru, who had come round for a collection and was just catching up on his horses in the local paper. “Look at William the first. Indeed look at Henry the seventh whose link to the throne wasa tenuous one indeed via his illegitimate grandfather.” “Yes, yes,” said Morris. “But we’re talking stability here. The country had had thirty years of war. They wanted a good king and Richard had been loyal to his brother Edward throughout that reign and also to the people who worked his lands. He was seen as fair and honest. In the 15^th century, fair and honest! Heck, he’d even been loyal to his other conniving brother, Clarence.” “The one drowned in Marmsey?” asked Sandra. “That’s the bloke” Morris told her. “You can’t tell me he hides himself away as a paragon of virtue amidst a sea of medieval skulduggery and suddenly, suddenly when it looks like the throne might be his; he comes over as ruthless as Alex Ferguson. No, no. We lost a good one there.” “So you think it was Henry the seventh that killed them lads” said Mavis as she leafed through the bedding. “I’m convinced of it, convinced” Said Morris, opening his Muller rice with a gesture that brooked no further argument.

However, Gran was in the comfy chair watching Joe Pasqualie on The Price is Right. “So if it was Henry the seventh what killed them boys, how come Edward’s queen let Henry marry her daughter, Elizabeth of York?” she asked, as a luxury motor boat was won by a man from Berkhamstead. “You wouldn’t want your son’s murderer marrying your daughter. I have enough trouble with you when you go a bit wild with the homebrew. And if Henry was so evil, why did he give the pretender, Lambert Simnell, a boy who inspired a rebellion and seriously threatened his throne, a job in his kitchen. Could have poisoned the lot of them but he ended up as Henry the Eighths falconer, so he did. Go on. Answer me that!”

Morris waived his spoon in the air. “Perhaps he never told her. Perhaps he lied. Men do lie to their wives and mother in law” Sandra looked up sharply. “Not that I do” said Morris hastily. “And Henry the seventh did execute the other pretender, Perkin Warbeck.” Gran sat back in her chair, unconvinced.

“He was the only King we’ve ever had from the North” continued Morris, though he could tell they were losing interest. “I just don’t think we can base our view of him as a pantomime villain on Shakespears play which was based on Thomas Moore’s biography and Moore, for all the good it did him, was trying to ensure the Tudor dynasty went unopposed. I think we’re all letting a good story get in the way of the facts.”

Well, said Sandra. “I can see there’s arguments for both sides. But if I were you, I’d keep it to yourself until you’ve got something irrefutable. I don’t want people whispering behind my back while I’m in the greengrocers. Remember all that kafuffle when you tried to prove the Vikings discovered America in that service station off the M4? I still get that rash.”

Morris scraped the rest of the rice out of his pot and decided his theory that the Celts were the pioneers of road building in the ancient world ahead of the Romans could wait until after Holby City.